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RE: BDSM and History - 4/9/2008 10:35:13 PM

SailingBum

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I guess it's all in how one defines slavery. And no i don't need that defined to make my point. Damacus Syria <well over 2000 years old> credited with being the oldest city still in existance today. Still pratices slavery today. The daughters are told who to marry woman can't drive you get the picture. I don't know anything about Egypts history.

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/10/2008 6:01:53 AM

thetammyjo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DelilahDeb

TammyJo,

Thanks for this sentence:
quote:

Others are very uncomfortable with the term "slave" for the very same historical view because they don't romanticize it.

I enjoy many of your posts, but this specific statement nails my feelings exactly. May I quote you?

Delilah Deb

If you like but be prepared for people who want "real slavery" to get annoyed as I'm sure some did if they read my post. I wasn't, by the way, attempting to judge people negatively or positively just to state observations I've made over the years when folks talk about why they use or don't use "slave" in relationship to historical/institutional slavery.

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/10/2008 6:05:07 AM

thetammyjo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: chellekitty

FR....

for actual incidents of bdsm in the past, i have found no better source that the timeline on the leather archives website but it doesn't mention much bdsm until the 1400's or 1500's...my own supposition would be that it was because that beating your wife or slaves or anyone else beneath you did not get a second glance before then...and it often didn't after then...but at that time and from then on there were more people noting when people would do "unusual things"...

My personal guess as a historian on this is that before the modern period in western society there was little equality that I consider necessary to classify any dynamic as BDSM in nature because only with equality can there be consent in my very strong opinion. But my concept and definition of consent is very specific.

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/10/2008 7:35:56 AM

chellekitty

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quote:

ORIGINAL: thetammyjo

quote:

ORIGINAL: chellekitty

FR....

for actual incidents of bdsm in the past, i have found no better source that the timeline on the leather archives website but it doesn't mention much bdsm until the 1400's or 1500's...my own supposition would be that it was because that beating your wife or slaves or anyone else beneath you did not get a second glance before then...and it often didn't after then...but at that time and from then on there were more people noting when people would do "unusual things"...

My personal guess as a historian on this is that before the modern period in western society there was little equality that I consider necessary to classify any dynamic as BDSM in nature because only with equality can there be consent in my very strong opinion. But my concept and definition of consent is very specific.

very true, however the desire can be there without the ability to consent, for example, a person who has been declared mentally incompetent is by legal definition a child and cannot consent to sex, yet they often still desire it...and i believe i addressed it in my post, but perhaps it wasn't clear enough...women and others beneath whoever was doing the beating were considered chattle, property, they did not need to consent, so whether they objected, did not object, or in fact sought "BDSM" out and thrived in it was inconsequential to the people doing the notations...and around that time some of the note takers did start to care, even though the laws did not change for some time...

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/10/2008 9:57:45 AM

Away4Awhile

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I must sincerely thank all who have added to this discussion and those who may still add more information both from a personal perspective and historical. With all of your thoughts and facts I "think" I am beginning to see where he was trying to go with it. Sometimes dealing in second languages make some conversations more difficult than they need to be.

I have gotten a great deal of positive feed back and do appreciate it ~~smile~~

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/12/2008 5:47:25 AM

iam4her

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I jump in quite late in this dialoge. I am the mentioned Away4Awhile´s slave
I have read through the posting and do thank everybody that have participated. Your postings have encouraged me to dive futher into this link between modern bdsm and the anchient hierarchies. Not saying that it was exactly the same thousands of years ago but there is a obvious connection, a link.

Archer; i became quite interested in your quote from the bible text. So i pulled down the dusty bible from my bookshelf and went to that chapter.
Now, here comes the interesting, being a swede, of course its a swedish version of the bible that i have.
The english translation you mentioned "I love my master," is different from the swedish "Jag har min herre" ,this swedish sentence translated back into english means "I have my Master"
Refering to me translating back into english. both Swedish and English are Anglo-English languages, this sentence is straight forward same structure and the word "har-have" is perhaps the second word swedes learn in their first english lesson, We use the same gender for the english word "has" so you can even see the obious similarites between our languages "has-har"

Even the words "Master - Herre" does not necessararly mean the same thing in our two languages, even here it become interesting how the text orginally is supposed to be...

Now, of course this makes me wonder how this sentence really was in its orginal language...?, Is it orginally written in Hebrian ?
So it is obvious that the translators colours the text with their own opinion. Text that will be verified and respected by a numbers of people.

A translator, a journalist, a documentary director , or a photographer are all under the same obligation of ethics to be as neutral as possible, as correct as possible.
So what is accepted or not from an ethicly point of view ?
If I see a link between modern bdsm and for instant old egypt, and state it as a documentary maker or a journalist in a film or in an article, what is accepted or not ?

I mean, obvioulsy one of the translators of the bible must have more or less raped the orginal text as the two words "love-have" means two completly different things.

If we would be incredible far-fetched you could most likely come up with an interpretation that "love-have" means the same thing, but if any interpration of words should be accpeted, why even discussing anything...

< Message edited by iam4her -- 4/12/2008 6:15:57 AM >

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/12/2008 8:00:39 AM

kiwisub12

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i have to admit to having the occasional historical fantasy - but it usually goes down in flames when i consider that standards of hygiene - ie bathing more than once a year, or dental decay and no tooth brushes - were a lot different back when... .

Think about being a woman , menstruating in long dresses with corsets - or worse, being the slave having to wash the rags and (stinky) clothes.

i get a giggle at Braveheart - during the scene when he is talking to the hot woman washing clothes in the stream - with beautiful, clean, shaped nails! To be the least bit lifelike she should have coarse, dirty hands with broken nails. She should also have chilblains from the unrelenting cold. And dirty hair because to wash it , she had to heat water that she hauled from the well or stream, so she wouldn't do it very often. she would also be missing teeth, and have rotten nubs where her teeth used to be, adn the bad breath to prove it. There was a reason that the men used to marry 13 and 14 year olds - they hadn't started to break down under the hard work and bad nutrition yet!

They call it fantasy because in the long run, fantasy is only very loosely based in real life. Thank Goddess!

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RE: BDSM and History - 4/12/2008 11:06:30 AM

NakedOnMyChain

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I am replying before I've read any of the other replies. While slavery in the historical sense was obviously not consensual, sadomasochism is a present theme spanning far back in history. It did not necessarily always occur between a nonconsensual slave and master/mistress, but often between free persons.

quote:

So ~~smile~~ anyone up to explaining how the fantasy of becoming a slave might have begun thousands of years ago that would have "initiated" the desire to become a real life slave to the extent it is possible?

What I'm garnering from this is that perhaps your slave feels that some sort of pull toward fantasies of slavehood via what she/he construes as the collective unconscious. I have often heard people talk about yearning, in various capacities, for the past. Desiring their past religion, their past people, their past culture. It is not so unfeasible to me that it would extend to a desire for and/or romanticizing or creating fantasies of slavery involving a past people's method of enslavement. Some people believe such desires are passed down from generation to generation in the collective unconscious. I've heard weirder things.

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